Into the Wilds
by Coyote Phillips
Summary: A wilderness survival course taught by the Grey Man during the spring semester at Bayport U seemed innocent enough. But during the summer one of the girls in the class is killed in front of Joe, leaving Frank wondering if the death is Network related.


A/N: I must admit, I have a lot of misgivings about this fic. So, after a lengthy year-long stay in Word and a hiatus after the first chapter was completed (second chapter is yet to be written), I finally decided to post it. Let me know what y'all think...

* * *

They buried Sandra Wilson at dawn. 

The group, now seven in number, had hiked a short distance from the longhouse into the woods to bury their friend and fellow Network agent. One of them, a girl majoring in forensic anthropology, said that it looked like that a branch or similar weapon had killed Sandy. But, knowing the Network, Frank Hardy wasn't about to give up the notion that this was just a ploy to see just how well they could survive in the New England wilderness with a killer on the loose.

They had to bury Sandy because nobody really wanted to have to put up with the stench of rotting flesh or having to watch her slowly decay and because it would be another month before the Network would come for them. "We can't leave yet," the anthropologist, Rose Holland, had pointed out the night before when they'd discussed their options. "Our navigation instruments are nil. Frank lost the cell at the first quarter moon. We have no way to contact the Network. Besides, how's Joe going to be able to keep up with us? He'd just slow us down if we tried finding civilization again."

---

Frank was truly amazed at how quickly and drastically everyone had changed in the last few weeks. Jennifer O'Shanter, who had come into the wilderness with golden hair to her thighs, had asked Rose to cut it to her chin after a particularly nasty fight with a bramble patch. Most of their clothing had competed with rawhide until the cloth stuff had finally worn out. Their fingers were calloused from shelling nuts, winnowing grass seeds, and weaving blankets and coverings from bark and grasses and branches for their shelter. And of course, they all had had blisters the first few days from using bows, points, and atlatls; and Melissa Davidson and Sandy had become pros at making microblades from stones and setting them in wood.

"Did anyone check the fish trap Joe laid yesterday?" Frank asked as the group solemnly made their way back to the lodge.

"We did last night after bringing Joe back," Biff said. "No luck. But we did see the thing that attacked Joe. You know what kind of creature carries a gun?"

Franked looked at his friend quickly.

"Lovely," Ruth said sarcastically. "So Sandy and Joe's mishaps were actually Network-coordinated to see just how well we can survive out here."

Everyone in the group, even Biff and Tony, had had moderate to extensive exposure with the Network, its agents, and its ways.

"How come every time the Network is involved someone always ends up getting killed?" Joe groused as he limped along.

Frank suppressed a groan as his stomach protested—he'd eaten something that _really_ didn't agree with him—and quickly left the group as he tasted bile. Coming back, he gave his brother a weak smile. "Sorry," he said quietly.

"Great. Flu on top of a killer," Tony Prito muttered behind him. "Just what we need."

Ahead of the boys, Rose, Jenny, and Melissa, were busy picking raspberry leaves at a patch they'd found their first day here. Frank smelled mint as well; there was a small but steady swath of the stuff next to the creek they'd made sure was near their camp.

Finally reaching the shelter, which was really a large framework of branches over a smaller one with the space in between stuffed with tinder like grasses, smaller branches, leaves, and evergreen boughs, Frank was relieved to lie down on his pallet of evergreen boughs that had been covered with a length of hide.

---

"_I knew I shouldn't have agreed to attend this wilderness survival class with you guys," Joe Hardy groused. Bayport University was offering a wilderness survival class in association with the local branch of the Red Cross. Knowing that, considering their work, it was probably a good idea to have a decent working knowledge of surviving in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on their backs, Frank and Joe had signed up for the class and had persuaded Phil Cohen, Tony Prito, and Biff Hooper to take it as well. The three had agreed, remembering how close to death they'd come sometimes in the forest on a case because they didn't know what they could use._

"_What's so bad about it?" Frank teased. "The fact that the final consists of surviving for three months in the wilderness with no supplies but the shirt on your back, or the fact that it's taught by the Grey Man?"_

_Joe glared at him. "If you must know," he said, "it's both. How many cases have we been on involving the Network where someone wasn't killed, seriously injured, or otherwise maimed?"_

"_Good point."_

"_Have you bought the texts yet for the survival class?" Tony Prito asked, appearing beside them from the doorway to the Campus Café and shrugging off his backpack. _

"_You mean this thing?" Joe asked, hefting a text roughly the size and weight of a typical package of computer paper. He dug in his own backpack for the other one: a paperback book titled _Edible Plants of the American Northeast

"_Was it just me, or did the professor look familiar to you?" Tony mused. "You know, Mr. Grey."_

"_Yeah. The Grey Man, the Network agent Joe and I work with occasionally."_

"**Occasionally**_? Try every _**week**_."_

"_Like I said, occasionally."_

---

_Leave it to Joe to grouse about everything, _Frank reflected as he chewed some mint leaves, hoping that that would settle his stomach. He wished they'd dropped out of the class the moment they realized that the Grey Man was teaching it. They'd even discussed that option with their father, Fenton Hardy, the first weekend they were home, but Fenton had told them to go ahead with the course, and see if the Grey Man approached them during the semester about doing more work for the Network. He hadn't, and Frank and Joe had continued the course. But because Frank hadn't gone along with what his instinct told him to do, Joe had been attacked by whatever killed Sandy. Sandy was dead and Joe was blaming himself for her death. Frank had either eaten something that didn't agree with him or it was just the flu, like Tony said. And to top it all off, they were stranded in the middle of nowhere with no idea where they were and with no way to contact the Network so the agents could be advised of the students' situation.

---

The agent known as the Grey Man eyed the computer screen in front of him over the assistant's shoulder. "Group 6 should have called in by now," the Grey Man muttered to himself. "We gave all of the groups orders to call in every seven days. This is the second call they've missed."

"Maybe they lost the cell phone," the assistant suggested.

"Maybe," the Grey Man agreed; "But Frank Hardy is in that group with his brother, Joe. They'd be valuable agents to us if they manage to survive the summer. Other agents of ours are with them; they should have survived up to now! Have you received any word at all from them since the last full moon?"

The assistant ran through the files, shaking his head. "No, sir. They were set down in Sector 12, sir, if you want to know."

"Thanks, Ian. Call dispatch and tell them we've got a group in trouble. We're going into Sector 12. Tonight."


End file.
